The once Twitter-affiliated service is gaining traction, albeit Bluesky is still the underdog in the competition for X alternatives. According to an update from the firm, the app recently surpassed 15 million users after gaining over a million new users in the past week. Although Bluesky is currently much smaller than its largest competitor, Threads, which has 275 million members, there are indications that Threads users are becoming more interested in the newcomer. An in-app search suggestion reveals that there are almost 19,000 postings regarding "Bluesky," a topic that has been popular on Threads in recent days. In recent weeks, Bluesky has also made an effort to gain favor with Threads users by publishing frequently on the Meta-owned platform. It looks like that effort is paying off. Just under 9 million people were using the service a month ago, according to Engadget. In the Apple App Store, its mobile app has the top spot, followed by ChatGPT and Threads. Dissatisfaction with Elon Musk and X after the US presidential election also appears to have contributed to its current success. "More than 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their accounts,” on November 7, “more than on any previous day of Elon Musk’s tenure," according to a recent analysis from web analytics firm SimilarWeb. Additionally, Bluesky's "web traffic and daily active users increased dramatically in the week before the election, and then again after election day," according to the research, when Bluesky's online traffic occasionally surpassed Threads'. (However, Threads' mobile usage is still "far ahead" of Bluesky's.) “In the US, Bluesky got more web visits than Threads in the immediate aftermath of the election,” the report notes. “For context, it’s important to note that both services are app centric, even though they support a web user interface.” Bluesky appears determined to set itself apart from its bigger, billionaire-controlled competitors. Before becoming a separate company, the firm was an internal project within Twitter. Since then, it has experimented with new features like user-created moderation services, bespoke feeds, and "starter packs" for new users. In a video sent Tuesday to new customers, Rose Wang, the COO of Bluesky, stated, "You're probably used to being trapped in a single algorithm controlled by a small group of people, that's no longer the case." “On Bluesky, there are about 50,000 different feeds … these feeds provide a cozy corner for you to meet people with similar interests. And you can actually make friends again, because you're no longer tied to a dominant algorithm that promotes either the most polarizing posts and or the biggest brands, and that's the mandate of Bluesky.”